


sounded like the truth (but it's not the truth today)

by ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat



Series: Wash Away the Rain (Winter Soldier AU) [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Deceit is the Winter Soldier, Gen, I didn't tag the others yet cause they were only mentioned, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence, Nothing really graphic though, Remus is also the Winter Soldier but we don't meet him in this one, Swearing, Team Let Virgil Say Fuck, Winter Soldier AU, and i'm tagging just to be safe though i will not be going that deep into it, eventually, i really don't know where this idea came from ok but i had to write it, just a lot of general confusion about memories so please be mindful of that, kind of, the Winter Soldier story has a lot of that if you're unfamiliar, they'll show up in the next part though i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26540875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat/pseuds/ThreeCrowsInATrenchcoat
Summary: His body made its decision, and by the time his pain-addled brain caught up and realized what was happening, he was already climbing the steps of the front porch. He hesitated, dragging himself to a halt before he could get any closer to the door. He couldn’t… no way. But, then again. Did he really have a choice?With a trembling hand, Janus knocked. Once. Twice. Then three more times in quick succession. Before he could knock again, the door swung open. The shadow of a man fell across him, silhouetted by the warm light of the living room beyond. Janus spoke first, his voice a weak and quivering mockery of his usual smooth, confident tone.“Please, I… I didn’t know where else to go.”(or: Janus has been Deceit for so long, he doesn't remember his life as Janus. But something about his latest target is familiar, and everything spirals from there.)
Series: Wash Away the Rain (Winter Soldier AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929958
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74





	sounded like the truth (but it's not the truth today)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes hello I don't know where this idea came from, but I had to write it. Basically this started with the prompt "the villain shows up injured and scared at the hero's door and asks for help", and then it kind of spiraled from there. I do intend to make this a series, I already have plans for part 2 and maybe a part 3. This is my first time writing fic though and writing other peoples' characters is tough. 
> 
> Please check the tags. This story involves discussion of missing/untrustworthy memories, implied torture and brainwashing, and just general Dealing With Trauma stuff. I think I tagged everything but please let me know if I missed anything. Feel free to ask for more details if a particular tag worries you. 
> 
> And finally, shoutout to Mia, who has endured my loud and intense obsession with Sanders Sides and has kindly read every single piece of writing I've put in front of her, including this one. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Deceit- no. Janus. Not Deceit, not anymore- stumbled, but his pace did not slow as he hurried along, darting from dingy alley to dingy alley in a desperate attempt to evade any pursuers. He clung to the shadows, avoiding the street lights where he could. Occasionally, he would pass by one of the few businesses still operating at this late hour, and the harsh neon light of a blinking “open” sign fell momentarily upon his torn and bleeding face. Momentarily, then the night would swallow him up once more.

The city streets were fortunately empty. At three AM on a Wednesday, most people were at home. Some with their families, some alone, but all _home_. 

Janus no longer had a home.

In fact, Janus no longer had _anything_ except the clothes on his back, torn and bloodstained as they were. The dark splotch on his side only continued to grow, seeping past the gloved hand pressed tightly over the wound and dyeing the pale yellow of his shirt a particularly nasty shade of reddish-brown. 

The night was kind to him. If he had been pursued- and while Janus was not sure that he had been, he knew more than most that a little caution could go a long way- he knew for certain that by this point, he had lost them in the darkness. Now all that followed him was the looming sense of dread that came with the realization that he had nowhere to go. They knew all his aliases, his safehouses, even the few people he might have called friends. Anywhere he went, they would be there waiting for him. To kill him, or worse, to take him back. 

To make him into Deceit again. 

His body made its decision, and by the time his pain-addled brain caught up and realized what was happening, he was already climbing the steps of the front porch. He hesitated, dragging himself to a halt before he could get any closer to the door. He couldn’t… no way. But, then again. Did he really have a choice? 

With a trembling hand, Janus knocked. Once. Twice. Then three more times in quick succession. Before he could knock again, the door swung open. The shadow of a man fell across him, silhouetted by the warm light of the living room beyond. Janus spoke first, his voice a weak and quivering mockery of his usual smooth, confident tone. 

“Please, I… I didn’t know where else to go.”

\- - -

It went like this. Janus was bad. 

No. Not Janus. _Deceit_. Deceit was bad. 

It had been bad people that turned Janus into Deceit, stripped away his sense of self until all that remained was _bad_. Then they’d shoved his mind in a blender and jacked it up to ‘high’ until Janus and Deceit were so convoluted and intertwined that they may as well have always been the same person. 

Then he’d done bad things. 

Assassinations, mostly. Subtlety wasn’t the Duke’s strong suit; no, they’d used his talents for other things. But Deceit, well. Deceit could move unseen, could be in and out without a trace. He was a ghost story, one that left a trail of bodies in his wake. Anyone they deemed a threat to their cause would be erased. 

This story really begins about two weeks earlier. 

One such threat to their lofty goal of “peace through domination” was a small team of PhD students, apparently. Deceit didn’t ask questions, though Janus may have. They were researching some kind of affordable new medical treatment or device or something like that, but it didn’t matter to Deceit. He was sent to eliminate them, quietly, and that was what mattered. 

Except that’s not what happened.

Instead, what happened was this: Deceit let himself into the lab just after 5 PM on a Friday. The first of his four targets always stayed late to set up experiments to run through the weekend. He would be alone in the lab, and his body would not be discovered until Monday morning. Deceit would make it look like an accident. Deceit _always_ made it look like an accident. 

Sure enough, his target sat alone at one of the tables at the back of the lab, identifiable, even with his back to Deceit, by his oversized black and purple hoodie and bright violet hair. Deceit moved silently by nature, but he needn’t have bothered. Even if he had dramatically announced his presence, the music blasting from the large headphones his target wore would have drowned out every word. 

Deceit was a mere three feet away when everything went off the rails. His target shifted suddenly, and his elbow knocked into a beaker left to sit carelessly close to the edge of the table. He twisted around in his seat to try and catch it before it tumbled to the ground. And then his gaze met Deceit’s. 

For nearly an eternity, they stared at each other, wide brown eyes locked to sharp green ones. Deceit- no. _Janus._ ...Janus?- felt a strange feeling wash over him. Something almost akin to…

The sound of glass shattering split the silence, and Deceit’s target- V...Vir…?- stood abruptly and lurched toward Deceit on unsteady legs. His mouth opened and closed, lips desperately trying to form words, but only one sound managed to claw its way from his throat: “J-Janus?”

Deceit fled. 

He wasn’t proud of it. When his handler found him later, holed up in a safehouse, he could offer no explanation. 

None except, “But, I knew him.” 

\- - -

Virgil stared down at Janus with an unreadable expression as Janus carefully lowered his shaking body to the bathroom floor in as dignified a manner as he could manage, given the circumstances. The silence stretched between them. Virgil dug a first-aid kit, dusty from disuse, out from under the sink and passed it to Janus. Then Virgil just sat there on the floor, opposite Janus, and watched. 

Janus worked almost mechanically. His gloves went first, then his tie, then his suit jacket, all into a bloody pile on the floor next to him. It wasn’t until he began peeling off his button-down that he heard a sharp intake of breath. Janus paused, then slowly raised his gaze.

Virgil was staring at him with a look of shock and horror, eyes flickering between the wounds on his face, and the criss-crossing pattern of injuries- old and new- that marred his torso. Then Virgil met his gaze, and the floodgates opened. 

“What the fuck happened to you?” Virgil demanded. Janus resisted the urge to sigh deeply. 

“Morningstar to the face,” he replied, trying to sound casual. He did not succeed. “And to, well. Other places.”

“You realize that raises more questions than it answers, right?”

Janus only hummed noncommittally, and turned his focus back to wrestling himself out of the tatters of his shirt. Virgil seemed to take this as an invitation to keep talking. 

“Ten years. Ten years of nothing. I thought you were dead. Then you show up in my lab? Then you show up again on my fucking doorstep beat half to death? I’m gonna need some goddamn answers, Janus.”

Janus flinched at the name- _his_ name- and his shaking hands lost their tenuous grasp on the packet of antiseptic wipes. They toppled to the ground beside him. 

“Oh, shit, look, I’m sorry. One thing at a time. You’re literally bleeding out on my bathroom floor,” Virgil muttered, though the words seemed more for himself than for Janus. Janus reached out to grab the packet again, but froze when he felt a hand on his arm. 

“Let me do that,” Virgil said gently. Janus looked over sharply, but his glare fell when the world started swimming around him. He closed his eyes instead. 

“Fine. Whatever. I don’t care.”

It was permission enough for Virgil. Deftly, he shifted over so he sat at Janus’ injured side and began to carefully wipe away the drying blood. Only the largest of the wounds still bled, but even that had subsided to a lazy ooze. Virgil silently cleaned and bandaged the wounds on his torso, but as he moved to address the wounds on his face, Janus flinched away from his touch.

“Hey, chill,” Virgil snapped, but there was concern in his eyes. Janus almost didn’t hear him, his mind still reeling from the memory of the last time there had been hands on his face- “ _I'm starting the procedure. Hold his head still._ ”- but the part of him that did hear held up a hand to stop Virgil from reaching for him again.

“No, I… I can do the rest.”

Virgil worried at his lower lip for several moments before he gave a single, sharp nod. 

“Right, um. Okay. I’ll, just. I probably have some clothes that’ll fit you, just… don’t leave again. Okay?” 

Dimly, Janus wondered if Virgil was referencing his expeditious retreat from the lab two weeks prior… or the departure that had occured ten years ago.

Had it really been ten years? Janus reached for those memories, but it was like grasping at smoke. 

His nod seemed to be enough for Virgil who, after a moment of hesitation, stood and slipped out of the bathroom. Janus missed his presence almost immediately.

Shaking off both that feeling, and the encroaching exhaustion as the terror and adrenaline began to subside, Janus stood and looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The Duke really had done a number on him, Janus mused silently. He had no doubt the left side of his face would be left littered with scars. 

He was lucky to have gotten past the Duke at all, much less still in one piece. Vaguely, Janus wondered if somehow, the Duke had resisted killing Deceit despite his orders. Some flaw in the programming that allowed foolish things like “friendship” to change the course of a weapon aimed to kill. 

Or maybe Janus just got lucky. 

He cleaned up his face as best he could, though he wasn’t sure he’d be seeing out of that eye again any time soon, if at all. Virgil returned soon enough, with a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants in hand. 

“Here. Just, like. I don’t know, leave your other shit here I guess,” Virgil grumbled. “There’s no way any of that blood’s coming out.”

“Oh, however will I go on?” Janus replied curtly. Or tried to. His words slurred together, which somewhat undercut the intended tone. Virgil just gave him an unimpressed look and shoved the clean clothes at him. 

“Just. Put these on,” he said, then stalked out of the bathroom. 

Janus did, if only because he did not really enjoy strutting about shirtless while nearly his entire upper body was wrapped tightly in gauze, and when he carefully eased the door open to peer out into the hall, he found Virgil waiting for him. 

“Look, dude, you’re gonna freak out my roommates if I leave you on the couch,” he said slowly. 

“That’s really not necessary, I’ll just be on my way-” Janus tried to interject, but Virgil spoke over him.

“And honestly I’ve been meaning to buy new sheets anyway, so if you bleed on my bed it’s whatever, I guess. Just don’t touch any of my shit, got it?”

“Really, you’ve done more than enough-” Janus tried again. But again, Virgil cut him off. 

“No way are you going back out there. You can barely stand.”

Janus wasn’t leaning against the wall to support his own weight because his entire body felt like lead. He _wasn’t_. 

“I don’t know what happened to you, or why you’re even here, and I better be getting those answers in the morning. But for now, you need to rest. And you’re gonna do that in my room, c’mon.”

Janus didn’t have the strength to protest further. Instead, he let Virgil lead him down the hall, into a bedroom, and carefully into a bed. The world was growing dark around him anyway. The last thing he felt before unconsciousness dragged him under was the comforting weight of a blanket being draped over his aching body.

\- - -

It wasn’t a cell, necessarily. To Janus, it might have been. Even Deceit preferred the freedom he had during missions, though he did not object to being confined to his quarters when there was no need for him. The assets were to be kept put away when they weren’t being used. It only made sense.

Still. The hours, days, weeks between missions were. Well. Long. Long and boring. 

(Not lonely. Deceit was never lonely. He _wasn’t_.)

The Duke was there, at least. In the next room over, of course, but there nonetheless. They conversed often. Or rather, the Duke talked- long, rambling streams of consciousness about both nothing and everything, his shrill voice carrying easily through the wall between them- and Deceit listened. 

They had tried everything they could think of to get the Duke to stop talking. Nothing worked. A part of Deceit, a part that was actually Janus but maybe also a part that was actually Deceit, was secretly glad for it. Because in those rare occurrences when the Duke’s room was empty, and the silence threatened to drown him, Deceit could swear he watched the walls of his room close in on him. Inch by inch.

\- - -

Janus woke with a start, and it took him several moments to remember where he was. In that time, he had leaped from the bed and made it halfway across the room toward the door. Then all the events of the night before came crashing down on him, and the weight of it all forced him to drop heavily into a seated position right there on the floor. 

Virgil. They had sent him to kill Virgil. 

Janus didn’t know why Virgil was so special, why every fibre of his being had screamed out at him in the moment before “his target” became “Virgil”. Most of his brain felt like mush, and trying to recall anything of substance felt like trying to crawl through a woodchipper. But Virgil was important. This, at least, Janus knew. 

Gradually, Janus realized the room was not silent. Muffled voices drifted in from one or two rooms over, the kind of conversation where everyone was trying to talk over everyone and it just gets louder and louder and louder. Janus recognized Virgil’s voice, but he could also make out three other voices that were unfamiliar to him. 

Ah. The roommates. 

“-idea what the hell happened to him! But something fucked him up, and I don’t think just physically,” Virgil’s voice rose to a volume audible despite being muffled by several walls. “The hell was I supposed to do, throw him back out onto the street?”

“Language, kiddo. And I don’t think that’s what Logan meant-”

“Certainly not. But I do not believe it is wise to have a relative stranger in our home without knowing what kind of trouble he is in. To do so may invite a host of unexpected problems-”

“He’s not a stranger,” Virgil insisted. “He’s… well, he _was_ my best friend. A long time ago, but _still_.”

“I have to agree with Negative Nancy, and you know I hate doing that. A friend is a friend, after all.”

“A redundant statement, but-”

Janus stopped listening. He should go. Coming here in the first place had been a mistake. A mistake made in the early hours of the morning when his self-preservation was the only one of his mental functions that hadn’t been completely paralyzed by fear and pain. But now, he needed to go. He would be fine. He could take care of himself. 

The doorknob turned, and Janus realized suddenly that the conversation in the next room had ceased. He tried to stand, but immediately his vision swam and he was forced back down to the ground just as Virgil slipped quietly into the room. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Virgil said, sounding surprised. “Why are you on the floor?”

“No reason. I like the view.”

“Uh huh. Okay. Want me to help you up?”

“Absolutely not.”

Virgil made his way over to Janus and wordlessly offered a hand. Janus took it, though he grimaced at the skin to skin contact. Virgil hoisted him to his feet with much less care and concern than was offered last night, and guided him to sit at the edge of the bed. 

“Your face looks awful. You need some ice or something,” Virgil said after a beat of silence. Janus quirked his eyebrow. 

“Thank you, awful is what I was going for.”

“So you gonna tell me why you showed up on my doorstep at three in the goddamn morning to bleed all over my floor?”

Janus hesitated, biting back the sarcastic quip that rose instinctively to his tongue. What could he even say? The truth? _I was sent to kill you by this secret evil organization that thinks your PhD work is a threat to their plans for world domination, except for some reason I know you and I don’t know why, so I didn’t kill you and then I escaped and now they’re after me and I have nowhere else to go_? No. Of course not. The truth would get him thrown out, or worse. Any sane person would call the police, have him taken away. Janus needed somewhere to rest while he planned his next move. 

So he lied. 

“I got mugged,” he said. “Apparently I was dressed too flashy for this part of town.”

“Jesus Christ, Janus, why not go to a hospital?”

“Too far. You were closer.”

“Ten years and you thought of me before you thought of a hospital?” Virgil laughed. It was a dry and humorless sound. “Last time we spoke, you told me you never wanted to see me again. And then you disappeared for, like I said, _ten fucking years_.”

Janus reached for that memory. It was like grabbing a handful of crushed glass, so immediately, he put it back. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” he lied instead. “I owe you an apology.” 

Something in Virgil’s expression shifted, like a small crack in a windshield just before the fracture spreads across the whole pane. Janus frowned slightly. 

“I should not have left things like that,” he pressed on, choosing his words with care. “That was wrong of me. And I am sorry for it. Truly.”

Virgil worried at his lower lip while Janus, who normally prided himself on being able to read people very well, wondered if this was the moment he got thrown out. But then there was a brief cascade of emotions across Virgil’s face before it settled on something partway between trepidation and relief. And suddenly, Janus was pulled into an embrace. It was tight, and it made his bruised ribs feel like they were on fire, and it made his skin crawl and his throat tighten and every muscle in his body screamed for him to pull away- but he didn’t. He didn’t hug Virgil back, either. But he managed to ignore the deluge of panicked thoughts that swamped his mind at the contact until Virgil seemed satisfied enough to pull away on his own.

“Okay,” Virgil said, finally. “Okay, I… I’m sorry too. And for the record, I do not buy your story one bit, but. You obviously need help, and I’m gonna worry about you forever if I don’t help you, just… Please. Don’t make me regret this.”

There was immense weight to those words, and the way Virgil looked Janus directly in the eye as he said them. They were meaningful in a way Janus couldn’t interpret, like they carried with them a lifetime of experiences lived. Lived, but not remembered. 

“I won’t,” Janus lied. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr @threecrowsinatrenchcoat, please come and yell with me/at me. 
> 
> Part 2 is coming just as soon as I can find some time in between a disgusting amount of classwork. Engineering school is hard, y'all. 
> 
> The title is from "It Seemed the Better Way" by Leonard Cohen, from Janus' playlist.


End file.
